


to touch

by baby_punk



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Drabble, M/M, Pre-Relationship, They're both touch starved, late nights in Adam's apartment, set in the beginning of Blue Lily Lily Blue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:41:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22840420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baby_punk/pseuds/baby_punk
Summary: Ronan won't stay out of Adam's cramped apartment. Adam can't sleep.They were both hungry animals, but Adam had been starving for longer.
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 12
Kudos: 153





	to touch

**Author's Note:**

> I just started writing this ages ago and I can't stop thinking about Them so I finished it and here it is, nothing fancy, just some Feelings! yee haw 😇

Ronan was on the floor of Adam's apartment. Of _course_ he was. How many nights had he spent there, after showing up at Adam's door at some ungodly hour? And Adam wanted to be frustrated, wanted to be annoyed that Ronan took such apparent relish in haunting him like a ghost. Instead, it filled him with the most peculiar sense of wholeness to see Ronan in his doorway, his shaved head backlit by the porchlight outside the church.

So Ronan was on the floor. Adam was in bed. _Bed_ \- it was a mattress on the floor, not even on a boxspring, nothing fancy in the least. Still, it made him feel guilty to be there, instead of having their places reversed. He'd offered the bed to Ronan so many times just to be scoffed at and snapped at and waved away. He'd even offered sharing. Ronan had only rolled his eyes. But maybe that was one of the things Adam was made for - feeling that guilt. A part of him, though, relished in the sight - Ronan, the boy who could have it all, laying on the floor of the smallest, shabbiest apartment in Henrietta. 

And as it was, Ronan made himself comfortable. He'd shucked his shirt and had it balled between his arms and his head. In the dark, illuminated only by the moonlight streaking in through the attic window, his tattoo faced Adam. Ever changing, always familiar. Always something like an echo of who Ronan was. It stretched up Ronan’s neck and wrapped around his shoulders like a cape, dripping down to the upper small of his back. Every now and then, it stretched down as far as to dip into the waist of his jeans. There was something so soothing about watching the way Ronan's muscles slid under his inked skin as he shifted, as he drew breath.

Adam was on his stomach, mirroring Ronan's position. Ronan's head was turned, facing the opposite wall. There was nothing there to see there, but it was still more than Adam. Like guilt, there was an ache that lived between Adam's collarbone and vertebrae. It was always there, but it burned like nothing else on nights like this. It was so quiet without central air or cars on the street outside; the dying-summer sound of cicadas was a comforting drone. Underneath it was the soft draw of each breath Ronan took, and under that was the pounding of Adam's heart in his ears.

He'd been staring so long. There was no way Ronan couldn't feel him. Adam closed his eyes. _How long can I keep this up?_ he wondered. He knew the answer. _Forever_. It was the only one there could be.

Ronan shifted on the ground, sighed in a way that made blood drop embarrassingly through Adam's body. He pushed it away, the racing thoughts that sprang up in his mind. He focused his mind, tried to conjure the meditation tips Persephone had been teaching him instead. When he opened his eyes a few minutes later, though, his eyes automatically went to Ronan. Of course they did.

He was still on his stomach, still facing away from Adam. He'd moved one of his arms from under his head and instead had it resting in the strip of floor closest to Adam's bed, hand level with his head so his elbow was out like a wing. The new position had stretched skin and muscle, drawing the tattoo in a new way. In the non-light, the incomplete darkness, it was a snake nest, a tangled line. Without thinking, Adam was reaching.

He stopped himself inches away, fingers still outstretched. He felt like a dowsing rod, if Ronan was a stream in a desert. If he touched his skin, would it burn? He sighed, and hoped that if Ronan heard him, he thought he was dreaming.

Adam was careless withdrawing his hand; in his defense, he'd squeezed his eyes shut. This wasn't a situation he could be careless in, though. He was fast in response, but Ronan was faster, reaching up and catching Adam's wrist. He'd turned his head and met Adam's eyes. How could a gaze burn like that, without anything but shadow?

Adam was holding his breath. He hoped it didn't show on his face. A sliver of weakness and he'd be getting his ass handed to him. Ronan didn't need provoking; he'd probably do it anyway. Of all people, Adam should have known the best how protective he was of his personal space.

Instead, Ronan did the unthinkable. He gave Adam's wrist a tug.

Adam blinked. He narrowed his eyes. Ronan's face was impassive in the dark, steady and calm even pressed against his other arm, watching Adam over his shoulder.

Slowly, waiting for the barest signal to stop, Adam relaxed his arm, stopped bracing to pull away. He stretched his hand back toward Ronan's skin, and like that Ronan let him go, his own hand dropping to the floor back by his head. He still watched Adam over his shoulder, waiting. The moment Adam's fingertips touched his shoulder, his eyes fluttered shut.

For a moment, Adam couldn't breathe. No, it didn't _burn_ to touch Ronan. He was warm, though, all solid and whole - half a dream and impossibly real. Adam's fingers were splayed as if he was Mister Spock looking for mind meld points. Ronan's back rose and fell underneath them as his lungs filled and emptied. Adam was breathing in cadence without meaning to.

Ronan's eyes opened, found Adam's again. It was like they never looked away. There was a challenge in them this time, though. A question.

Adam bit his lip. He moved his fingertips experimentally, drawing them together. Under them, Ronan let out a long breath. It was like parts clicking into place. When Adam drew his index to one of the sharp lines of black ink, Ronan's eyes closed again.

It wasn't comfortable laying like that, half on the mattress and half reaching out over Ronan's prone body. It didn't even register to Adam, though. Wonderment grew in him as he traced the tattoo. He stretched to follow it from one shoulder to the other, stuttering over the knob of spine at the base of Ronan's neck and following the divot down the center of his back. Intertwined roads and feathers and scraps of latin, all woven tightly together. Adam's hands were rough from work, calloused and knobbly-knuckled. It didn't seem to matter. Ronan was breathing deep and steady through his nose, still just-audible over the cicadas outside. Was he asleep? Was he dreaming?

The tops of his shoulders were scored with scratches of varying size and depth - Chainsaw's clawmarks. Something struck inside Adam, the idea of bearing pain, even in small doses, without even flinching - out of love, because of trust, because of companionship. Ronan probably never thought twice about letting Chainsaw on his shoulder, about her claws cutting his shirts and his skin. That's what love was to him.

Without thinking much about it, Adam rocked his fingers so the very tips of his blunt nails dragged softly along the patterned skin of Ronan's shoulder blade. Ronan shivered underneath his hand, the short hair at the nape of his neck standing up. The shiver rolled like thunder through his muscles, and he arched his back just slightly - right back up into Adam's hand. Adam, too, felt a shiver building in him, but it was distinctly different.

His back was still arched just-enough to be visible, but Ronan huffed a sigh against his arm.

"Goose on my grave," he said by way of explanation. As if that cleared things up. Fucker.

Adam swept his fingers back together, experimentally letting his nails bump Ronan's skin again. There wasn't another full-body shiver, but Ronan rocked a little on the floor. It was like he wanted to be closer, like he was minutely bucking up.

All at once, it was too much. Adam snatched his hand away and squeezed his eyes shut, biting down hard on his bottom lip. What the hell was he thinking? And when had the air become so heavy? The mattress creaked under him as he rolled onto his back, putting space between him and Ronan. When he opened his eyes back to the not-quite-dark room, his gaze found Ronan's. He was squinting up at him from over his shoulder again, eyebrow cocked in askance.

"'M tired," Adam muttered. He wasn't tired. His blood felt like it was on fire.

Ronan nodded almost imperceptibly. After a moment, he said, "Thanks, Parrish,"

Adam's stomach felt funny. A thank-you? Was this the kind of situation where you gave thanks? _Since when does Ronan Lynch say 'thank you'?_ He rolled once more onto his side to reach out and shove Ronan's shoulder, hard, and then scrub a rough hand over his buzzed head.

"Shut up, Lynch. It's nothing." _I can't have this conversation with you._

Ronan huffed, half of a laugh lost in the crook of his elbow. He shrugged Adam off with an easy roll of his shoulders. For some reason, with only the barest details visible in the dark room, the motion felt devastating to Adam. Ronan was looking at him again with one half-closed eye. "Whatever, man. Good night."

"Good night," Adam echoed, rolling over to face away from Ronan, to try and get a handle on his heartbeat. He was off-balance, even though he was flat on his back.

Where was his grounding, where was his mind? The reeling emotion was something, though, welcome break from roiling anger or confusion or desperation. Funnily enough, though, it fit right in with those. Adam tried not to sigh and scrubbed his hands over his face, pushing at the furrows in his brow with his calloused fingers.

In the morning, there would be no mention of a back rub in the dark, of geese on graves. There never was. _How long can I keep this up?_ Adam wondered again. He knew the answer just as well as he could still feel the ghost warmth of Ronan's skin on his fingertips. _Will this ever be enough?_ That was harder to answer. 

**Author's Note:**

> I literally have dreams about these two (and the rest of the gangsey, i won't lie) so uhhh maybe there will be more!! Let me know what you thought :)
> 
> come say hi on my [tumblr](https://keepthefrank.tumblr.com/)! 🌈💓


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